Issue #1: Expanded

[continued from MBF section, Issue #1]

…I gotta tell you, I wasn't impressed at the quality of filming or the story telling. I can honestly say, as a black American, I think the story was thrown together to take advantage of the “woke” movement in my country. Nowadays, I watch all films with the eye of a filmmaker, so I am always asking myself questions, like: Could I tell such a story? Could I have told a better story? And What have I learned from this piece? For me, Descendant was more like a-made-for-TV journalistic tale than what I would consider a documentary film. But, then again, the rules on what a documentary film is has changed. Any idea you have can be worthy of a Netflix documentary, so don't sell yourself short!

Descendant takes place in the southern USA in what was once called Africatown, gathering information on stories of a slave ship arriving into the United States, long after the importation of slaves was made illegal. Descendants of people on that ship told the stories passed down to them and historical records were researched in order to track down where they believe the ship (the evidence) may have been destroyed.

I think the film producers let the story take on its own life but for me, the main characters were not compelling enough to carry the story. I think a more historical approach, reading the writings of people we know were on that ship might have been able to pull the viewer in a bit more and keep us interested in knowing if the ship could be found, for the peace-of-mind of the descendants.

For me, the cinematography was shot more like a video piece and didn't appear to have a lot of thought put into it. As an example, walking shots of a few main characters were not stabilized. Some highlights taken during interior shots were blown out without thought to alternative coverage. I didn't see any direction given to the characters in this film and finished it knowing I could do a film just as good, if not better than what was presented.

So, the moral of this story is to keep shooting, keep learning from others, and never think your work is not meant for the world to see.